


Take The Shot

by Jade



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:55:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22918054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade/pseuds/Jade
Summary: He misses Daryl’s fifth birthday because he’s in juvie.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	Take The Shot

He remembers when he was eight years old, hearing his mama crying in the bathroom. There’d been another fight and daddy had stormed out of their run down double wide. It was only his mama’s sobs that filled the silence. She hadn’t noticed him when he’d crept up to the edge of the bathroom door. Her makeup all smeared from crying, the corner of her mouth starting to swell from where she’d gotten hit. She was holding a little white stick in one hand, staring down at it like it had just told her a sad story.

He remembers that when she’d looked up, when she had finally noticed him standing there and watching her, that she’d smiled at him. It wasn’t a happy smile, all filled up with tears and smudged lipstick. She’d held her empty hand out to him and he’d gone to her frowning. Taking her hand and letting her draw him in against her side on the bathroom floor. 

“Guess you heard then,” she’d said, not really giving him a chance to tell her that he’d covered his ears when the shouting started. “You’re gonna be a big brother soon. Gonna have a little brother or sister in the fall.” 

He remembers that was the last time he saw his mama smile. 

***

He’s nine when they bring the baby home.

He remembers looking down at the little face staring so quietly up at him from the blanket the hospital had wrapped him up in. Wide blue eyes and a tiny little nose. Merle had never seen something so clean or small in their house. 

It’s the first time it becomes real. He’s a big brother. 

He doesn’t say it out loud, already knows better than to make promises that his daddy can hear. 

He remembers promising that he was going to be the best big brother. That he’s going to make sure that he’s not going to feel hungry or scared. It’s a promise Merle makes to himself more than to the baby his mama had put into his arms. 

And just like he could hear the words Merle wasn’t saying to anyone else, the baby stares right up at him. Like even just a few days old, baby Daryl was asking him ‘you really think that’s what’s going to happen’? 

*** 

He was thirteen years old when he figured it out. 

Daryl had been a quiet baby. Slept through the night as soon as he’d gotten home. Hardly ever cried even when he was hungry or cold or wet. Like he’d known the instant he’d been brought into the rundown and messy trailer that it was safer to be quiet. Safer to be out of mind for Will Dixon. 

He’s a gentle and sweet toddler. 

Merle is the only one he’ll smile for. The only one he’ll laugh for. 

Taking Merle’s hand and walking him to the edge of the woods to show him the little secrets that he’s found. A bird’s nest where the babies are learning how to fly. A rabbit wren where the mama rabbit just sat there staring at them, at Daryl, without any fear of the kid. 

He’s a sweet one, his little brother. 

And Merle doesn’t understand how something so sweet could come from something so ugly. Because it wasn’t the first time their mama had said no to Will Dixon. It wasn’t the first time Will Dixon hadn’t listened to that no either, took what he wanted from her and left.

It had been the first time that Merle had stepped in though. Their mama’s shirt half ripped off, and Will Dixon pulling at his belt. Merle had pushed into the room shouting at his old man to leave her alone. Gotten his nose broken and felt the sting of that belt across his back like a fire brand. And Will Dixon had still dragged his wife off to the bedroom where the screams had started and stopped and a few hours later, he was back out in the living room with a beer in one hand. 

***

He misses Daryl’s fifth birthday because he’s in juvie. 

He isn’t there the first time Will Dixon backhands his youngest son. But he hears about it when he gets out. About the first hunt Will Dixon had taken him out on. That he’d been made to kill one of the animals he’d been watching since he was little. He doesn’t need to know that Daryl had cried silent tears over it.

The bruises are fading on his face, just sickly yellow shadows under his skin. 

***

He misses his mama’s funeral because he’s back in juvie. 

He’s not sorry that woman is gone. She’d been gone a long time now. 

He’s sorry that he isn’t there for his little brother.

***

He’s eighteen years and one day old when he walks into the recruitment office in town. Signs his name on the paper that transfers the ownership of his life to the United States Marines. It’s only been his for a day and he’d given it away. 

When he tells Daryl, it’s been a few weeks and the deed is done. 

Daryl doesn’t cry. He doesn’t cry. He doesn’t ask Merle to stay or to take him along. 

It’s only when he’s got his bag packed and he’s stepping out the door that he realizes Daryl hasn’t even said goodbye. He’s got to get going but he looks around the house for his baby brother. Goes looking through the woods out back and can’t find his trail. 

It’s the first time he realizes that he’s broken his first promise more times than he can count. The first time he realizes that maybe his little brother has watched him leave too many times because he was being taken away that he doesn’t want to watch Merle leave by his own choice. 

*** 

He’s twenty three when they let him out.

Daryl hadn’t come to see him. At least he doesn’t think he had. Not like he’d been kept close really. 

The sun is bright and it’s a clear fall day and there’s his little brother, leaning against a beat up old truck. The ownership of his life has been returned to him. Discharged from the Marines because they didn’t want him anymore. 

He knows what day it is. And he doesn’t know if this is a birthday gift for his brother, or a second chance for himself. 

But there he is, tossing Merle’s bag into the bed of the truck and driving them off. It’s the start of an adventure. Another chance for him to try and keep that promise he’d made to the little baby his mama had put in his arms. 

*** 

He’s twenty four when he thinks that there might be something more different about his brother than he’d originally thought. 

He’s been tossing women his way for months now, trying to get him a little tail, a good time. And Daryl just doesn’t seem interested. Doesn’t matter if they’re blond, or brunet, or hell even the honest to god redhead. 

They come out of his room looking like they got a good night's sleep instead of a rough and tumble between the sheets. Daryl looking like he’d spent the night sleeping on the floor, or not sleeping at all really. And some of those girls he knows aren’t quiet in bed, and he should feel a little wrong about knowing that. About sending women he’s slept with before to his little brother. 

There’s an uncomfortable moment when he thinks his little brother might be gay and Merle doesn’t know if he’s okay with that. Will Dixon’s ugly voice shouting in the back of his head about fags and how he’s glad his boys aren’t sissy fags. 

It’s after three days of hard drinking and coming down off his first meth high that he realizes he doesn’t really care. Well, he cares because the people he hangs with are going to have a problem. But he doesn’t care because this is his little brother. And Merle isn’t going to pick anyone over his baby brother. 

So he ‘mistakenly’ drags them out to a gay bar that didn’t look like a gay bar. Shoved his brother at some guy that might have been pretty if he hadn’t had a beard and had some tits. Daryl’s drunk enough that he doesn’t get what’s happening right away. Drunk enough he doesn’t see Merle slip away, getting into a cab without even looking back. This isn’t his kind of place and he doesn’t want to fuck this up for his brother.

Merle loose a tooth the next day when he finally gets home in the small hours of the morning. Daryl still doesn’t look like he’d gotten laid, or even gotten one rubbed off. Got his nose broken again too when he’d said what he’d been thinking and Daryl sets him straight. A few bruised ribs and he’d given Daryl a split lip and a black eye before the message got through. His little brother can take care of his own dick and he didn’t need or want Merle trying to figure out who and when someone got into his pants.

So, yeah, he’s twenty four when he realizes that there is something different about his baby brother. Not because he’s gay or doesn’t like girls. But because he just doesn’t seem interested in sex, and that’s a world bender Merle never thought he’d have to think about. 

*** 

He’s thirty two when he realizes that his big mouth was going to get his brother killed. 

Jumped up little tweaker with a gun to his brother’s head and Merle knows, he just knows, that if that little fuck pulls the trigger it’s going to be his fault. He’s dragged them around from shit towns to the city and back to shit towns and Daryl had gone along for the ride. Merle and his big mouth that’s gotten faster and meaner over the years and Daryl’s about to pay for it. 

Drugs and booze and just a whole lot of bullshit. 

But Daryl is puking from a punch and he’s laughing. He’s laughing not because it’s funny that his brother got punched or that he’s puking his guts out onto the floor. 

He’s laughing because he has never been so relieved in his life and if he didn’t laugh he was going to cry. 

***

He’s fast approaching forty-two when the first news stories hit about people going crazy and eating other people. 

The news is shit anyway. Merle was high, gotten a good bump when he’d woken up, sniffing a little when he’d nudged Daryl awake with the toe of his boot, told him he was going out. Found a job that could get them enough money to bounce out of the little shithole town they’d been staying in. 

Drying out in a prison cell later that night, he realizes that maybe he’s a shit brother. But at least he hadn’t gotten Daryl involved in this. It had gone bad almost from the start. Probably because Merle was high, probably because the two others were as well. Either way, they’d gotten pinched while trying to make off with the goods. 

And here he is. Sitting in a cell in the back of a police station waiting to get sent to jail. But at least his little brother wasn’t in the cell next to him. 

***

He doesn’t even know how old he is anymore when he finds his baby brother again. 

He feels old, following his little brother back to the prison. His brother looks like he’s heading home, and maybe he is. Following behind Officer Friendly as they go up to the cell blocks. Merle gives up his weapons without any argument. Even hands over the ones they didn’t find when they pat him down. 

He’s quiet, or as quiet as he can be. There’s still words falling out of his mouth that he knows he shouldn’t be saying. He quiets down though when he starts to see it. 

These people are so mad at his little brother. So angry with him for walking away with Merle. But they’re also damn glad to have him back. Relieved. Welcoming him right back into their little fold. 

Merle can see it. This little family his brother has found and circled himself with. They believe in him, care about him. They were probably better for him than Merle had ever been. 

They respect him. Trust him. Love him.

And Daryl loves them too.

*** 

He still doesn’t know how old he is anymore. 

Maybe he’s a hundred years old, maybe he’s nine again. 

He’d seen his little brother holding a baby the other day. Watched the way he’d smiled at the little thing bundled up in blankets and a little pink hat. It had been a very long time since he’d seen a smile like that on his brother’s face. Soft and sweet, voice low like it had been when they were kids, like he was telling her all about the secrets he’d found while he held the bottle for her to eat. 

Lori’s baby, Daryl told him. And he knew it was because Daryl had looked up and for one tiny second had seen the look in Merle’s eye. Because the timing would have been right. If he’d gotten the little blonde knocked up near as soon as he’d seen her. 

Lori’s baby, Merle repeated to himself. Because for one second he’d thought Daryl had walked away with him and left his own baby behind. Didn’t matter that he knew Daryl wasn’t all that interested in sex, he hadn’t been all that interested in affection and sweetness either by the time Merle had gotten out of juvie the first time. And here he’d been surrounded by people he cared about, people who let him be sweet and gentle and didn’t think he was weak for it. 

And he was shit brother, he was. He knew Daryl. Knew him like no one else did. Daryl who couldn’t leave family behind, who wouldn’t let family get left behind. He’d brought Merle back to that place because he couldn’t do it. 

He wouldn’t have walked away from his baby if it had been his. 

He’s a shit brother.

It might have taken him too long to figure out how to keep that promise he made when he was nine years old. But he could do this. He could make sure that his baby brother got all the things that Merle hadn’t had, make sure he got to keep all those good things he’d found. 

Leaning his cheek closer to the gun so he could get the Governor in his sights. 

All he had to do was take the shot. 

  
  
  



End file.
